


The Stars Look Nice Tonight

by HetaFruitsOuranHp321



Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: Camp Camp - Freeform, I'm still broken down from that episode, I'm still fucking crying, Other, There will be swears, based off of a beautiful piece by pilot-doodles, it's camp camp, what do you need to know?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-05
Updated: 2017-09-05
Packaged: 2018-12-24 09:06:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12009528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HetaFruitsOuranHp321/pseuds/HetaFruitsOuranHp321
Summary: After the events following Campbell's arrest, Parents Day, and a good old pizza trip, Max is unsure of what to do next. David might have the answer to that, seeing how similar the two may just be without Max ever realizing it. But not before a nice quiet look at the stars.





	The Stars Look Nice Tonight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [It's in the notes](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=It%27s+in+the+notes).



> I would love to thank Pilot-Doodles on Tumblr for inspiring this from this piece: http://pilot-doodles.tumblr.com/post/164331263010/mountain-sound-please-let-david-adopt-max-by-the
> 
> And for that, this piece is dedicated to them.
> 
> Please give critique. If this is too OOC, tell me so that I can work harder to be more in character for fanfictions and perhaps fix this piece.
> 
> Part Two: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15520239
> 
> EDIT:  
> Thank you so much everyone for the notes and the compliments. I'm actually trying not to cry. Thank you so much. 
> 
> With some personal and comment critiques, I decided to actually fix this. Thank you so much by the way again. I wasn't expecting this reaction to this fic. Again thank you.

The night air was cool, crickets singing the songs of their hearts, and an occasional rare breeze blew through Camp Campbell. Max couldn’t sleep tonight. The blankets made him feel too hot to be under, but the cold air insisted he roast in the confinement of his uncomfortable bed. It had to be midnight, and the fact he was tired physically and emotionally after tonight’s little escapade with Parents’ Day didn’t help with the discomfort. Max wondered if a night stroll was tolerated at camp. 

“Fucking hell…” He muttered as he sat up on the bed. Finding his hoodie and shoes, he put them on quietly trying not to disturb his friend Neil, who was surprisingly sleeping at all tonight. Usually the big nerd was up late at night, reading up on his notes and science-y books that he had packed for his camp. Max tiptoed out of the tent, making sure no noise would wake up the bastard. 

Max didn’t want to find out what happened if Neil was disturbed from his sleep. And luckily, he wasn’t going to find out tonight. As soon as he was out of the tent, Max felt the night’s cool breeze on his face and looked up. It was a clear night. He would be surprised if Space Kid wasn’t up all night to just watch the abundance of lights in the sky. Stars were okay if you actually liked them.

Digging his hands into his hoodie’s pocket, Max headed off into an arbitrary direction. He was sure that David would scold him for not having a buddy or any light to see anything ahead in his path. Max would’ve probably lied and said he had to take a shit bad enough to not have any of those requirements. But tonight, it didn’t feel right to think about lying to him. Not after taking him to the pizzeria to help with the fact his parents didn’t care. Had David always cared?

Thinking more on it, maybe he was starting to trust David too much. Could he? Max wasn’t sure. Something about David made Max see a different light in his counselor. Today had really played Max’s patience with the guy, with his annoyingly parental like pep talks and fussiness. But the moment he read the paperwork, he dropped the happy father act. He dropped his entire optimism just to make sure he was okay. Was this what being cared about was supposed to feel like?

Lost in his thoughts, he had aimlessly wandered until he noticed an occupied log around where the campfires were held. Max stepped closer, trying not to make so much noise against the twigs, luckily pine needles covering a few. Unluckily, some twigs were on top of the pine needles. And Max was startled when the figure spoke aloud to him. 

“You can come sit down, Max. I knew you’d probably be up too.” That fucking moron. Max groaned and walked over. He didn’t sit next to David, but he didn’t try to give him a sarcastic reply. Max instead sat on a log next to the one David sat on and looked at the ground, the moon’s soft blue hued light shining on the forest floor. They were in silence like this. 

The air was still, set aside the owls and crickets making their melodies through the night. It had been quite a bit before one of them spoke. “So… Couldn’t sleep tonight huh kiddo?”  
“Yeah. Not after that God forsaken disaster of a show that was half-assed.” David only nodded at Max’s statement.

“I can’t disagree with that… After all, Campbell… Parents’ Day… The uh…” He fell short on that, but Max knew he meant his file. David only continued the conversation after a long hesitation. “Well I mean, at least I can try to get this place. With Mr. Campbell gone, Gwen and I can at least run it as we want. I mean, it could be like before if I had a choice. But if you, Gwen, and the others want to change it…”

Max hadn’t thought of that. What were they going to do with Campbell gone. Could they actually legally buy the place? They did technically qualify despite Campbell losing a kid. It was probably years ago anyway. But Max wasn’t sure if it worked like that. Max looked over at David’s face, which was still looking up at the stars. He cleared his throat. “So why are you out here? Couldn’t sleep either?”

“It’s a clear night,” David answered. Max raised a brow as David turned to him smiling. “I love clear nights like this. Helps me clear my head… Stop thinking and I don’t have to try to do anything. Not for anyone but myself, anyways. I can just be me without worrying about anyone. It helps me sleep.”

“So you do get sick and tired of this shithole?” Max asked smirking. David’s face dropped and he sighed. 

“Language-... You know what… I can’t actually stop you from doing what you want, even if I could try. But you do you, okay Max?” His smile was small and coming back. “You deserve to be happy. Remember?”

“You already told me that, David…” Max sat in silence as David looked up again at the stars. Max frowned before continuing. “David… Why do you care about how I feel? How did you even know what to do? All I did was have some parents who couldn’t give a rat’s ass over what I do when I’m not in their supervision. You gave me all that advice like it was nothing. Like you were experienced in this.” 

David turned to him, surprisingly calmly, and sighed. He looked down at the ground and frowned. “Because I know how it feels.”

That caught Max off guard. He knew how he felt? He was the happiest guy in the whole fucking world. What did he mean he knew how it felt? Max scooted close to the edge of his own log and looked at David. “You know how it feels?”

“Yeah… I guess you could say I’ve experienced it hundreds of times…” Hundreds? Jesus Christ how bad was his life? Then again, Max never heard a thing about David’s life story other than his story about that stupid badge hanging on his rearview mirror. But David never told a thing about his out of camp life. Gwen gave Max some idea of how her life was outside of camp. Other than that, that was it. Max finally spoke up.

“What do you mean hundreds? Did your parents seriously abandon you all the time?” David held himself a little bit as Max asked the question. It was quite a moment of silence before David answered his question. But it suddenly made so much more sense to Max when he did. 

“No… Only once but the others, yeah.” Max’s eyes widened as it was pieced together. 

“Holy shit you were a foster kid.” David only gave a halfhearted laugh in response to Max. 

“Yep. Wouldn’t have guessed huh?” David smiled at Max sadly. “I was a lot like you. Pushing people out, in fear they’d hurt you again. Never really trying. It’s how I would cope. It was quite a time for me, moving around in homes. They’d all say the same things. ‘You’re just not fit for us’, ‘we love you but you’re too much trouble’. I’ve even had a ‘he’s just too’- and I quote-” David pitched his voice to the storytelling voice he used on the way to the hospital for his younger self, “‘rotten to the core’.” 

Max snorted. Even David had a bit of a chuckle before looking back up. “But when I came to camp, after my new foster parents decided I needed a bit of nature to help my attitude, it seemed to somehow… work.” David looked back at Max and smiled. 

“It’s why I saw a lot of me in you. And why I wanted to help you have fun. I also didn’t want to believe it. I didn’t want it to be possible that another kid could just be abandoned like that, like I was. When I saw your paperwork, I knew that it was true,” David sighed. “I didn’t get signed up for an activity either. They figured anything could be ‘my thing’. But it didn’t help that they didn’t just put in effort. Like yours.”

Before Max could speak up, David continued. His eyes seemed to shimmer a tiny bit. “I didn’t want to make this about me. Sorry. I just… You know. I just needed to let you know you can always talk to me about this. It will get better. As someone who knows, I promise you. It will definitely get better, Max. You just need to see the good in a situation in order to gain hope.”

Max only stared at David with a bit of… pity. Pity for someone he once hated to the core. He didn’t have anyone. At least Max had parents still. David? David didn’t even get to know his. Max looked up at the stars and sighed. “So… What about the stars really got you interested in them?”

David looked up back at the sky and just stared. He smiled and sighed. “Constellations. When I couldn’t sleep as a kid, I loved looking at the stars and making up my own. And try to find some that I could identify. It was fun making up stories for them, and if I couldn’t remember one? I just threw in my own little details here and there. It was one of my best camp memories.” 

Max only turned to him. “You sound a lot like Space Kid right now, moron.” 

That got another smile out of David. “Eh well… Sometimes it’s great to enjoy a fellow camper’s interests as well. But I’m not as crazy for space as our fellow space enthusiast. You wanna try to make a constellation?” 

Max groaned. “Ugh… Fine. But not because I want to. I honestly don’t give a fuck about stars.”

It felt like hours they were doing this. Pointing out stars, making a picture in the sky. Max made a couple about bone crushing bears, some about aliens that ate the guts out of a guy from the inside. All that fun Max like stuff. David of course made constellations about some people, some from camp and some from other camps. Max’s favourite had to be, admittedly, Pikeman’s. The story of how a zit faced fucker like him crying at the glory of Camp Campbell gave Max amusement. Quite a bit of an unusually mean but funny side of David. 

It felt nice actually. Soon they were just talking about the constellations and one by one identifying them. Max was smiling the whole time he found. It almost as if he was talking to a family member. Maybe even a…

Max frowned. No way would David actually care about Max like he was his son. Max’s smile dropped a little before asking David a question. “Hey David?”

“Hm?”

“What did you want to be when you grew up?” Max felt a bit silly asking this, but he thought getting to be a bit nicer to the guy would be a change. After all, he did take him out for pizza after it was clear his parents gave zero shits about him. David smiled. 

“I had loads of ideas actually. Before I officially wanted to be a camp counselor, I thought maybe I could be… a hero,” he grinned. “I wanted to save people. Give them hope. Not exactly Spiderman or Superman. I knew they didn’t actually exist-”

“No shit.”

“But I wanted to be someone who would change lives. I was a bit technical like doctor, a fireman, even a cop,” he scratched the top of his head as Max rolled his eyes. 

“You’d be too polite and apologize for even arresting the bastards.” David only grinned. 

“I guess that’s a bit true. But when I came to camp, I looked up to Mr. Campbell. He sort of became in a sense my version of a superhero. So I decided why not be a camp counselor when I grew up? Camp saved me. I wanted to do the same for others.” Max looked at David not saying anything. 

It kind of made sense for him to look up to a guy like Campbell. He seemed cool and amazing despite his sleazy worse than Trump schemes. If anything, Max couldn’t blame him. Anyone that just gave hope to a kid became a superhero to them. Max felt bad. After tonight, that definitely was crushed for David. But on the bright side, at least the fucker was locked up. 

Max sighed. “You know anymore stories about heroes?”

David gleamed up. “Actually, since it’s summer… Hercules is up tonight!”

“You need to work on your phrasing, dude. Also, Hercules? The wimp as shit guy who sings songs and dances about how amazing his life is now that he’s a hero? Please.” David shook his head. 

“Not exactly. Disney didn’t really do his story justice. It wasn’t actually how it goes for the most part. Wanna hear the story?” David asked. Max shrugged.

“Got nothing better to do in this hellhole anyway. Go on.” That brought a smile. 

David shifted so that he was more comfortable on the log, and began. He pointed to a collection of stars in the sky. “Well, Hercules was born a demigod. His father Zeus agreed he could come to Mount Olympus if he could prove himself a hero.”

“I know this David. Disney. Remember? The overly optimistic capitalistic company?” Max groaned. David only shrugged. 

“Sometimes books are better than movies. Anyway,” he smiled wide. “He had to prove himself. 12 tests to be exact. Some of his challengers are constellations as well. Such as Draco.”

“You mean the Malloy shithead or whatever his name was?”

“No. He was actually a serpent that Hercules managed to crush,” David corrected. “Anyway. Hercules had to work hard to earn the respect he deserved. Even gaining more than he wanted. Such as a place on Olympus and being the first demigod to even actually make it onto there.”

Max turned his head to David. “So he just killed some monsters and earned his way up?”

“It took more than that,” David seemed to really get passionate about this. “It took dedication, trials, errors, and even some helplessness. He knew it’d be hard to do, and that it’d be a bit of a hectic journey. But the hope of a better life, a better future. Even a better sense of who he was, that was what drove him to believe that he could do it. In fact, he kind of reminds me of you.”

Max got caught off guard by that. “Me? Why the fuck does he remind you of me?!” 

David turned his head to Max and looked at him with a soft smile. “Because you’re brave, Max. Deep down you knew it’d be a hard summer. You wanted to run away. Almost succeeded, and not only that but faced some pretty hard truths. But you persisted. You had a hard life, Max. Obstacles left and right. No one can endure a life like yours and still try. You tried without knowing it Max. And you know what?”

David ruffled Max’s hair. And though he wanted to push his hand away, Max let him. “That’s a hero thing to do. To go on with life despite the hardships and fears.”

Max only looked at David. It felt amazing. If this is what being cared about felt like, then Max loved it. He gave a small smile back at David. “I think Hercules could learn a thing or two from you as well. No one can face assholes like those homes and not kill anyone in the end without half a mind.”

“Well about that…” David started. Max’s eyes widened. 

“You didn’t, did you David?! Holy shit-” David only laughed and held his sides grinning. 

“I’m just kidding. I didn’t really. But yes seriously maybe he could learn how to not kill his wife and kids,” David sunk in a little at that thought before sitting up straight. “But like I said kiddo… You’re an amazing person. You deserve happiness and love. It took me a while to believe it for myself. It still is taking time. But I don’t want you to doubt that you ever deserve it. Okay?”

Max nodded slowly. He wasn’t thinking before he grabbed David into a hug. It was something Max just really needed right now. He was shaking, feeling a force and hot warmth against his eyes and soon he found himself in tears. David only rubbed his back with the occasional shushes and soft whispers of it being okay. It took some time, feeling like hours but most likely minutes, for Max to collect himself again. He wiped his nose and eyes against his sleeve and whispered in a hoarse exhausted voice. 

“David…?”

“Yes?”

“... Thank you.” He was starting to fall asleep. The warmth of the hug and the emotional exhaustion was taking over Max. His eyes were starting to hurt from being awake for so long and from the excess of tears in one night. Before he actually did manage to fall asleep, he heard David answer in a whispered soft voice.

“You’re welcome, Max.”


End file.
